As a result, Diodorus’ worth as a historian is usually (but not always, as he is capable of being inefficient, careless and confusing in his own right) dependent on the quality of his chosen original source for a specific period. It is generally agreed that Diodorus, in Books 11–15 (480–360), mainly follows the history of Ephorus. Ephorus of Cyme (c.405–330) composed a History of Greece in 30 Books from the so-called Dorian Invasion in the Dark Age to 341. He was allegedly a pupil of Isocrates, the well-known rhetorician, and consequently his historical writing was greatly influenced by rhetoric. The result of this was twofold: first, a stirring and stimulating presentation of historical events became more important than their factual accuracy; second, history became a medium for moralizing, highlighting the noble and ignoble behaviour of famous men as a lesson for future generations.
It is a feature of Diodorus’ handling of his sources that he adopts their approach to historiography and repeats their moral judgements, which can lead to superficial and biased reporting. There is doubt concerning Diodorus’ source for Book 16, but his generally favourable picture of Philip of Macedon suggests that he may have used Theopompos, another alleged student of Isocrates, who wrote the Philippica, a universal history in 58 books, centred on the exploits of Philip of Macedon from 359–336. Diodorus appears to have based Book 17, his account of the career of Alexander, on the Greek Cleitarchus, the source for the ‘vulgate’ tradition (see beginning of Chapter 27).
Diodorus has a number of failings, especially in his dating. It is not known what system of dating Ephorus used, but his arrangement of historical events ‘kata genos’ (by subject), i.e. as self-contained mini-topics, covering a number of years (see FGrH 70 F191 above as an example), strongly suggests that it was not based on the annalistic (yearly) dating system of Thucydides. But Diodorus, while keeping to Ephorus’ subject-matter approach, has attempted to superimpose such a dating system, giving the relevant Athenian archon and Roman consuls for each year, as well as the number of the Olympiad every fourth year. This has led to arbitrary and erroneous dating, and is consequently unreliable. For example. Diodorus devotes the whole period from 474–471 to events in the west (11.51–53), as though nothing was happening in the Greek world; but then he gives a long and detailed account of Themistocles’ first trial at Athens for treason, his ostracism, his exile in Argos, the second accusation of treason, his flight to northern Greece and later to King Xerxes in Persia, and finally his death (11.54–59) – all these events, covering many years, are grouped under the year 471/0 (see Chapter 11). In the same way, he crams all of Cimon’s successes from the capture of Eion, the first recorded action of the Delian League forces, to the battle of Eurymedon into the year 470/69 (11.60–62). It would seem that the availability of these time periods, since he had already allocated the previous three years to events in the west, was Diodorus’ sole criterion for inserting the above events into these two years. Furthermore, if he had no information for a particular year, he had no qualms about moving something from elsewhere that was not too far away in time: for example, the Spartan debate about regaining the hegemony of Greece by force from the Athenians is dated to 475/4, although 478 seems a more likely date for such a discussion (11.50).
Diodorus’ narrative can also reflect the pro-Athenian bias of Ephorus. As a result, previously unheard-of Athenian victories suddenly appear, and recorded defeats become military successes. For example, at the beginning of the First Peloponnesian War, Thucydides records the Athenians’ first defeat at the battle of Halieis and their subsequent naval victory at Cecryphaleia (1.105.1). However, Diodorus’ account has an unnamed Athenian victory, followed by an Athenian victory at Halieis, as well as at Cecryphaleia (11.78.1–2). The ultimate source of these battles and the rest of the events of the ‘Pentecontaetia’ (479–431), via Ephorus, may be Hellanicus of Lesbos, whose history of this period was criticized somewhat unfairly by Thucydides for its brevity and chronological inaccuracy (1.97.2). Thus, where there is disagreement between Thucydides’ and Diodorus’ versions of the same events in the fifth century, it is a good working principle to prefer Thucydides’ account. Nevertheless Diodorus, if used cautiously, does fill in some of the gaps in Thucydides’ own brief digression on Athens’ rise to power in the Pentecontaetia (1.87.6–118).
Diodorus’ worth as a historian improves from 411 onwards, when Thucydides’ history comes to a sudden end, especially for the period 411–386. The reason for this is that Ephorus’ (and therefore Diodorus’) source for this period is a historian, to whom modern scholarship has given the name ‘the Oxyrhynchus Historian’ because the 1,200 surviving lines have been discovered on papyri at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. This historian has employed a rigorous and analytical approach to his subject matter, similar in many ways to Thucydides’; and his account is not only different from and thus independent of Xenophon’s, but also usually superior. Although the surviving text covers chiefly the events of 396–395, its quality is illuminated by a direct comparison with Xenophon’s treatment of this period. For example, Xenophon, in his narrative of Agesilaos’ campaign in Asia Minor in 395, is mainly preoccupied with Agesilaos’ personality (e.g. his shrewd handling of Lysander – 3.4.7–10) and with scenes that provide for dramatic or colourful treatment (e.g. Agesilaos’ conference on the grass with Pharnabazus – 4.1.29–39). By contrast, the Oxyrhynchus Historian dismisses all such material from his work, but concentrates in Thucydidean fashion on Agesilaos’ military campaign, thus revealing (which Xenophon was trying to hide) his lack of any substantial victories. In addition, the Oxyrhynchus Historian gives a clear insight into the rivalry of competing political factions in various states, and its effect on those states’ foreign policy.
As a result, Diodorus’ account of Greek affairs in Books 13 (after 411) and 14 (404/3–387/6) is a useful corrective to Xenophon’s pro-Spartan bias, and provides more information about events in northern and central Greece than Xenophon’s, which is more concerned with happenings in the Peloponnese. The Oxyrhynchus Historian’s work probably ended with the Peace of Antalcidas (also known as the King’s Peace) in 386 and so coincided with the end of Diodorus’ Book 14. It is not known what sources Ephorus (and thus Diodorus’ Book 15) relied upon for the period 386–360, which dealt with the gradual rise of Thebes to a position of pre-eminence in Greece (see Chapter 25). However, Diodorus’ narrative is particularly useful, as it provides an account of the exploits of Epaminondas, the great Theban statesman and general, and confers well-deserved praise upon him (15.39.2; 15.88), which Xenophon deliberately omits, as Epaminondas’ success was achieved at the expense of the Spartans.
Thus Diodorus is a useful source for the fourth century, since, despite his weaknesses, he provides access to a tradition that differs from that of Xenophon, and also gives a better understanding of events in the wider Greek world than the narrow and parochial Xenophon.
Herodotus
Life and career
Most of the evidence for Herodotus’ life comes from the Suda, a Byzantine historical and literary encyclopaedia, written about the tenth century AD. His date of birth was 484 BC, according to Aulus Gellius (15.23), but this was probably derived from the calculations of Apollodorus who dated a man’s birth to 40 years before a famous event in his life – in Herodotus’ case, his decision to become one of the founding citizens of the new colony of Thurii in southern Italy, established in 444/3. He was born to upper-class parents in Halicarnassus, a city in south-west Asia Minor, and thus moved in aristocratic circles. As a young man he became involved in politics, clashed with Lygdamis, the tyrant of Halicarnassus, and was forced into exile in Samos. Later he took part in the overthrow of Lygdamis, but did not return to his home. Instead he chose to travel to Egypt, to Tyre, down the Euphrates to Babylon, to Scythia and to Greece; he lived for some time in Athens, where he gave recitations of parts of his History. In 444/3 he left Athens to settle in the newly founded pan-Hellenic colony of Thurii, where he probably stayed until his death at some time in
the 420s, although it is possible that he may have revisited Athens.
The History
Herodotus introduced his work by stating that his narrative was a result of his ‘Historie’ (Research/Enquiry), thus providing the name for this genre of literature. His work was divided (but not by Herodotus) into nine books. Book 1 contains the rise and fall of Lydia under Croesus (7–94); the story of Persia and the Persians, including the emergence of Cyrus (95–140); and the successes of Cyrus over the Ionians and the Babylonians, and his defeat and death at the hands of the Massagetae (141–216). Book 2 covers the accession of Cambyses to the Persian throne and a description of the geography and history of Egypt (1–182). Book 3 continues with the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses (1–38); the rise and fall of Samos under its tyrant, Polycrates (39–60, 120–28, 139–49); the death of Cambyses, the accession and reforms of Darius in the Persian Empire (61–117); and Darius’ conquests in the west (including Samos) and his recapture of Babylon (120–58). Book 4 is based mainly around the history, geography and ethnography of the Scythians (1–82) and Darius’ campaigns against them (83–144); the last section is a similar treatment of Libya, including the foundation and history of Cyrene, and its conquest by the Persians (145–205).
Books 5 and 6 set the scene for the Persian War: the military operations of Megabazus in Thrace and Macedon (5.1–27); the Ionian Revolt of 499–494 (5.28–6.41); the renewed advance into Thrace and Macedon (6.42–48); and the battle of Marathon in 490 (6.94–123). Book 6 also includes a brief history of Athens in the late sixth century, covering the fall of the Peisistratids in 510 and the reforms of Cleisthenes in 508/7 (6.55–73), and the attempts by the Spartans to interfere in Athens’ new constitution (6.74–96); and the foreign policy of Cleomenes in the last decade of the sixth century and in the 490s (6.49–84). Books 7–9 cover the Persian War of 481–479: the accession of Xerxes in 486, his decision to invade Greece (7.1–19), his preparations and advance to the Greek borders (7.20–137); the counter-preparations of the Greeks and their occupation of Thermopylae (7.138–71); the battle of Thermopylae (7.196–239), and the preliminary events and the sea-battle at Artemisium (7.175–95, 8.1–25); the build-up to and the battle of Salamis (8.27–96), and its aftermath, including the retreat of Xerxes (8.97–139); the events leading up to the battle of Plataea, the battle itself, and its aftermath (9.1–89); and finally the battle of Mycale and the second revolt of Ionia (9.99–106).
As is the case with Thucydides and Xenophon, there is scholarly disagreement about the order of composition of the books in Herodotus’ History. This is further complicated by his wide-ranging approach to historiography, since he includes so much geography and ethnography. On the one hand, there are the ‘separatists’ who hold alternative views: either Herodotus began writing as a geographer and ethnographer, having planned originally to publish the early books (e.g. Book 2 on Egypt) as independent works, but gradually developed into a historian, composing a history of Persia and then proceeding to a history of the Persian War (e.g. Jacoby); or Herodotus’ first composition was the Persian War in Books 7–9 and at a later date he wrote the earlier books (e.g. How and Wells). On the other hand, there are the ‘unitarians’ (e.g. Myres) who believe that Herodotus always planned from the beginning to write a full history of the Persian War, and that the geographic and ethnographic sections of his work are only carefully planned digressions from the main historical theme, which he had conceived on a far broader scale than the narrow concentration on politics and warfare of Thucydides. As there is insufficient evidence to prove either case conclusively, it must remain a matter of speculation. However, most scholars do agree that Herodotus must have gathered all the relevant data for his History before he finally settled in Thurii in 444/3, and it is possible that he wrote his work there in the order that has come down to us.
Apart from his own personal observation, Herodotus made use of four kinds of source material: oral, literary, epigraphical and archaeological. It is generally agreed that most of Herodotus’ evidence came from oral informants, such as the men who had fought in the battles of the Persian War (see Chapter 9); the priests in Egypt who explained the background to the monuments and dedications in their country; upper-class Athenians and Spartans who related the stories about their family traditions and involvement in affairs of state; and Persian nobles who had knowledge of the political situation and decision-making in the Persian king’s court. As regards literary evidence, Herodotus made extensive use of the poets, such as Homer (2.116 on Helen of Troy’s stay in Egypt and Phoenicia), Hesiod (2.53 about the origins, appearances and powers of the Greek gods), Solon (5.113 and his praise of Philocypris, the ruler of Cyprus) and many others. There has been scholarly disagreement about his use or non-use of prose writers, but the weight of modern opinion inclines towards the view that, if Herodotus did acquire some of his information from such a source, Hecataeus of Miletus, the Ionian geographer and statesman, was his sole source, but even then he was not used extensively except possibly for Book 2. Finally, Herodotus included epigraphical evidence, although he needed a translator for the foreign languages that he encountered: official Persian documents from which, for example, he derived his account of the Persian ‘satrapies’ or provinces (3.89–97); temple records such as the oracular responses of the Delphic oracle, e.g. the two oracles given to the Athenians on the eve of the Persian War (7.140–41); monuments such as the tombs of the Scythian kings (4.71) and of the Greek dead at Plataea (9.85); and inscriptions such as the honorific epitaph for the Spartans who held the pass at Thermopylae (7.228). Herodotus is justly praised for the amount and diversity of his source material, but one of the two major criticisms levelled against him concerns his use of this evidence.
Herodotus did not glibly believe all that he was told, and his own words show that he had at least established basic (albeit unsophisticated) criteria for assessing the reliability of some of his evidence:
I myself feel obliged to write down the things that have been told to me, but under no obligation at all to believe them.
(7.152.3)
Where there were conflicting traditions, he does on occasion show a willingness to express openly or imply his preference for one version, for example, the stories about the origins of the Scythians and how they came to possess Scythia (4.12), and about the means by which the Arabian king supplied water to the troops of Cambyses, the Persian king, so that they could cross the desert in order to attack Egypt (3.9.2). On many occasions, however, he simply narrates the divergent stories and leaves it to the judgement of the reader to decide, such as the conflicting account of the Therans and the Cyreneans about the role of Battus in the foundation of Cyrene in Libya (4.154).
Far more damning is his over-reliance upon Athenian sources and his frequent failure to recognize the presence of obvious prejudice and partisanship in their accounts. This is particularly obvious in his description of the actions in the Persian War of those cities, which later in the fifth century became either allies or enemies of Athens. As a result, the Corinthians, who became hostile to and were the main enemies of Athens in the First Peloponnesian War (462/1–446/5), are given a very unfair press: their admiral, Adeimantos, is portrayed throughout the naval campaign of 480 as corrupt and cowardly (8.5), and is accused of leading the rest of the cowardly Corinthians in flight at the battle of Salamis (8.94). However, he does at least record the claim of the rest of the Greeks that the Corinthians played a leading role in the battle (8.94).
In the same way, Herodotus’ treatment of those states that medized (i.e. joined the Persian side) during the Persian War is shaped by their later relations with Athens. Argos and Thessaly are treated very leniently, even though the Argives had refused to join the Greek cause, preferring a policy of neutrality (and friendship, according to some Greeks) with the Persians (7.150–51) and had even warned Mardonius, the commander-in-chief of the Persian army, of the Greek army’s advance into central Greece against his forces (9.12.2), while the Thessal
ian nobles had taken the leading part in inviting the Persians into Greece (7.6.2, 7.130.3; 9.1), and all the Thessalians medized as soon as the Persians reached their borders, proving to be very supportive of and most useful to Xerxes (7.174). It is clear that their decision to become allies of Athens in c.461 against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League was instrumental in their generous treatment by Herodotus. By way of contrast, the Thebans are particularly vilified, even though they sent 400 men to Thermopylae, had medized under duress and claimed later that a powerful narrow oligarchy had been the sole supporters of this pro-Persian policy (Thucydides 3.62). Herodotus is contemptuous of the 400 Thebans, highlighting their half-hearted support and eagerness to surrender, and stresses that medism was widespread (9.87) and welcomed among all the Thebans (9.40, 9.67). Once again it is Athens’ long-standing hostility towards Thebes and the Boeotians, which continued throughout most of the fifth century to the end of the Peloponnesian War (404), that shaped Herodotus’ attitude towards them.
The second major criticism of Herodotus is his inability to identify and analyse the real causes of political events, concentrating instead on the personal motives and activities of certain individuals. Thus Cleisthenes’ decision in 508/7 to carry out his tribal reforms, which did so much to break the regional power of the Athenian aristocracy and to establish democracy in Athens (see Chapter 7), is said to have been motivated and influenced by the same reasons as his grandfather’s, who changed the names of the tribes in Sicyon because he despised their ethnic origin (5.68–69). In the same way, the causes of the Ionian Revolt in 499 are ascribed to Aristagoras and Histiaeus: the former, because he needed to protect himself from Persian wrath after his failure to capture Naxos, as promised; the latter, because he was home-sick for Ionia and believed that a revolt would persuade King Darius of Persia to release him from Susa in order to deal with it (5.35–36). In a similar fashion, the internal history and foreign relations of Sparta from 520–490 are mentioned in passing, while Herodotus concentrates on the lives and careers of the Spartan kings. A good example is the long section on Demaratus’ dethronement in Sparta (6.61–70): Herodotus gives Cleomenes’ desire for personal vengeance as the main cause – Demaratus had refused to support his policy against Athens and Aegina – but does not explain in depth the foreign policy issues facing Sparta, and the alternative options that split the two kings so vehemently and their reasons for supporting such policies.
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 3
